Translation:Shulchan Aruch/Choshen Mishpat/337

Paragraph 1- If the worker is working for the employer on a food item, he may eat from that which he is working on, even if he is not working with his hands and legs and is just carrying on his shoulders. The employer is prohibited from muzzling him and preventing him from eating. If he does muzzle him, he would pay him but not receive lashes.

Paragraph 2- When is true that the worker can eat? Where he is working on items that grow from the ground and is attached to the ground at the conclusion of their work, such as where he is harvesting grapes, olives, figs or dates until the item is detached from the ground, before the final work on the item that would obligate them in tithes is done. If the worker is working with something that does not grow from the ground, however, such as milking, churning or making cheese, he would not eat. Similarly, if one is working on an attached item but not at the conclusion of its work, such as hoeing grapes, covering the roots of the trees or even plucking onions and sesame, such as where he is separating the small ones from the large ones, the worker would not be able to eat from them, even if it is the conclusion of the work of the small ones, because the primary purpose of the work is to make more room for the large ones, whose work has not yet been completed.

Paragraph 3- If the worker works with detached items after its work was completed with respect to tithing, such as where he is separating dates and figs, he cannot eat, because a worker cannot eat any matter where there is no further obligation that would require tithing, such as figs and grapes after they’ve become subject to tithing. With respect to matters that are subject to further obligations, such as wheat that will be turned to bread and obligated in challah, the worker may eat until the work making the bread subject to challah applies. After that, he can no longer eat.

Paragraph 4- If one selects inferior dates that have not fully ripened and puts them in a basket and warms them up and makes them soft there, their work is still not complete and he may eat from them.

Paragraph 5- If the employer’s barrels were opened and his cakes were broken and he hired workers to work with them, the worker may not eat from them because they were already subject to tithing. When is this true? Where the worker knew it was opened. If he did not know and thought it was not yet subject to tithing, however, the employer would be required to tithe and feed the worker.

Paragraph 6- If one is guarding attached items, he cannot eat even if it is at the conclusion of the work. If he is guarding detached items that have not yet been completed, however, although he is not entitled to eat under Biblical law, he may under local custom.

Paragraph 7- A worker can eat more than this wages. For examples, if he only hired for one dinar he can eat a cucumber or date worth a sela. We would instruct him not to do so, however, so that they do not refrain from hiring him. There are those who say this is only where he was hired for the entire day. If he was just hired to pick one cucumber, however, he cannot eat it. Even if he was hired for the entire day, he should not eat the first cucumber he picks. Rather, he should first put it into the employer’s vessels and then he can eat.

Paragraph 8- If the worker was guarding four or five bundles of five different people, he cannot fill his stomach from one of them. Rather, he would eat a proportionate amount of each one.

Paragraph 9- If the worker was working on figs, he should not eat grapes, even if he was hired to work on both. He can, however, refrain from eating until he reaches a good area and then begin eating. Thus, before workers have gone vertically and horizontally, they may eat grapes but not drink wine because it is not visible that they worked on wine and it is as if they worked on one species and are eating from another. Once they have walked vertically and horizontally, they may eat the grapes and drink the wine.

Paragraph 10- If the worker was working on this grape he cannot eat from another grape. If he ate it, we would not remove it from him nor deduct from his pay. In the case of a grape lying on another grape and he is working on one of them, however, he may eat from the second one.

Paragraph 11- The worker cannot eat except while working, He may not sit down and say he held back until now and did not take and eat and thus he will now sit down and eat. As a regulation to help the employer not have his workers waste time while working, the Rabbis said that once the worker finishes one row and begins to work on the next row, he may eat, even though it is not at the time of work, because it is good for the employer that the worker not waste time.

Paragraph 12- The worker cannot eat bread or something else with the grapes so that he eats more of the grapes. He cannot eat it with salt. If he made an arrangement with the employer that he would eat such and such amount, he can eat it with bread, salt or anything else he wants.

Paragraph 13- The worker is prohibited from squeezing the grapes. Similarly, he is prohibited from roasting the stalks in fire or crushing them on a rock, even if the roasting and crushing does not take away from his work.

Paragraph 14- The worker is prohibited from eating an amount that would be a gluttonous eating.

Paragraph 15- The worker is permitted from dipping his bread in brine so that he eats many grapes. The employer is permitted to give the worker wine to drink so that he does not eat many grapes.

Paragraph 16- If the worker told the employer give to his wife and children what he was going to eat or he said he will take a small amount of what he took and give it to his wife and children, we would not listen to him. Even if the worker was a nazir working on grapes and said to give it to his wife and children, we would not listen to him.

Paragraph 17- If a worker was working with his wife, children and servants and he made a condition with the employer that they would not eat from their work, and they were adults and consented, they would not eat. If they were minors, however, they would eat.

Paragraph 18- One who eats at a time where he is not entitled to, brings with his hands from that which he is working or gives to someone else, has a violated a negative commandment.

Paragraph 19- A worker is not permitted to work at night and hire himself out in the day. He cannot starve and afflict himself and give his food to his children because of the negative impact to the employer’s work given that he will be too weak to perform the employer’s work with strength.

Paragraph 20- A worker is cautioned not to waste a little time here and a little time here. Rather, he is required to be exact with himself given that the Rabbis were so strict that they did not allow him to make the fourth blessing of birchas hamazon. Similarly, he is required to work with all his strength given that Yaakov the righteous said, “for I served your father with all my strength” and thus received his reward in this world, as the verse states, “and the man grew exceedingly prosperous.”